Might we suggest these Republicans get their lies straight before going public?

From Republican State Representative Tom Emmer's press release today, on the defeat of his restrictive Photo ID voting bill in the MN legislature this morning:

"The U.S. Senate recount has given us evidence of twenty-five precincts in Minnesota where more votes were cast than the rolls had registered voters," said Emmer. "How does a situation like that not cry out for a safeguard that will return confidence in our election process to Minnesota voters?"

Just now, from attorney James Langdon, arguing on behalf of former Republican Senator Norm Coleman, in the U.S. Senate election contest in MN:

"There hasn't been a whiff here, of any fraud."

But why quibble when we might be able to disenfranchise (Democratic-leaning) voters in a democracy? By the way, the RNC seems to agree with Langdon, not Emmer:

Not that any of that will stop any Republican anywhere from doing everything they can to keep legal (Democratic-leaning) voters from being able to cast their legal votes through Photo ID restrictions, or anything else they can think of.

Even though the U.S. Department of Defense canceled its Internet voting project (SERVE) in 2004 citing security concerns, and even though the DoD has still been unable to establish the secure and private Internet voting demonstration project that Congress mandated in 2002, the Washington State legislature is seriously considering a bill that would authorize the Washington Secretary of State to create an Internet voting scheme and declare it secure and private --- without any oversight or review by the legislature or the people...

An official state investigation is now underway into multiple voter fraud charges against Rightwing author and one-time attorney Ann Coulter in Connecticut. The investigation began after a complaint was filed with the state's Elections Enforcement Commission on January 29, 2009.

The BRAD BLOG has exclusively obtained a copy of that one-page complaint which is posted in full, as filed with Joan M. Andrews, Director of Legal Affairs and Enforcement for the commission, at the end of this article.

The complaint was filed by Daniel Borchers, a conservative Christian critic of Coulter's following allegations in the New York Daily News in January that she had illegally voted by absentee ballot in CT, using her parents address there, in 2002 and 2004, despite being a resident of New York City at the time.

Though the allegations of Coulter having committed voter fraud in CT in 2002 and 2004 would be her first known instances of casting ballots illegally, they are not the first allegations of such crimes against Coulter. In 2005, after she moved from NY to Palm Beach, FL, she knowingly falsified her Voter Registration Form (a 3rd degree felony), knowingly voted at the wrong precinct (a 1st degree misdemeanor), as well as gave a false address for her drivers license (another 3rd degree felony).

Despite an inaccurate report from AP in May of 2007, subsequently picked up by other media, Coulter was never "cleared" of the voter fraud charges in FL.

The Mississippi State Senate has made an unusual move; they've pulled legislation that they passed on January 15 requiring that voters show a photo ID before being allowed to vote, stripped all amendments out of it, and passed the new legislation.

The previous version had an amendment that allowed voters age 65 and older to vote without showing a photo ID. Mississippi's Republican Governor Haley Barbour had pressed for the removal of that exemption. He got his wish...

Not long after last November's general election, I was invited back to appear on The Gregory Mantell Show to discuss issues of Election Integrity. This time it was just myself and Gregory, on everything from touch-screens that don't work to tabulator hacks to Oprah Winfrey's lost Presidential vote. (The video of my previous appearance on his show last November, as part of a panel discussing the myth of "liberal bias" in the media, is posted here.)

Remember back in 2000 when the Republicanists belittled elderly (and minority) voters, claiming that 'if they failed to fill out their ballots correctly, and failed to follow the simple voting rules, then they're idiots and their votes shouldn't be counted'? They made the case over and over again, cynically, of course, because it would mean that, even though more voters had intended to vote for Al Gore than George W. Bush (and actually did [PDF], had they bothered to count them all) Bush should still be allowed to "win" the Presidency.

Well, as we've had to say so many times during our previouscoverage of the GOP flip-floppery that is the election contest of former Senator Norm Coleman against Al Franken in MN: that was then and this is now.

At right, take a look at the short, approximately 1-minute video of Coleman (and FL 2000 Bush v. Gore) attorney Ben Ginsberg, trying to keep a straight face in a presser after his team argued today that yet another cherry-picked voter/witness whose absentee ballot was legitimately rejected --- in this case because she failed to sign the ballot --- should have her vote counted anyway.

Like we said, that was then and this now. So never mind that whole "voter fraud" argument. Not useful today for the GOP opportunists. And now, while I'll try to stay out of the deep weeds tonight on today's proceedings at the Coleman/Franken circus (you're welcome), Nate Silver at FiveThirtyEight.com argues convincingly --- based on fairly reliable reads of usually-predictable WSJ and other Wingnut Tea Leaves --- that Team Coleman may ultimately be angling for a do-over. That is, a re-vote for the entire election.

He may be right. Though there may be another plan, even though admittedly, the Coleman campaign is largely making all of this up as they go along, and any or all of the following guesswork may end up being their "strategy"...

We know what the excuse is in MN, but what's the excuse in Riverside County, CA?

Seems there is none, other than County Registrar Barbara Dunmore's hope to ensure the county remains one of the absolute worst places to cast a vote in the entire nation (and there's some stiff competition there!)

Though Dunmore certified the results of last November's election on Dec. 2 as "full, true and correct" --- 28 days after the election, as per state law --- it turns out she's still counting votes, months after the election. In secret...

This afternoon, Day 5 of the U.S. Senate election contest between former Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and apparent winner of the '08 election Al Franken (D), Coleman offered another reason, just in case you needed one, to oppose his return to the Senate:

In a press conference outside the courtroom held just a short while ago, Norm Coleman announced that if he gets back into the Senate, he'll work on ways to make it easier for young people to vote online.

While we're in favor of "young people," and as many other legal voters who wish to vote, actually getting to cast their votes and have them accurately counted, if you like our currently unreliable electronic vote counting systems, which employ untested, unsecured, hackable garbage, then you'll love seeing that system opened up to the Internet!

All that said, however, where Coleman's case began on Monday as little more than a comedy of one error after another, as we explained in some detail earlier this week, over Days 4 (yesterday) and 5 (today), his legal team seems to have found a bit of footing, even if they've had to counter most of their own legal arguments that they'd made previously to keep ballots from being counted during the post-election hand-counting of ballots.

At the end of that process, Franken was found, by the state canvassing board, to have defeated Coleman by 225 votes, out of 2.9 million cast, even though Coleman was slightly ahead in the vote count during most of that time, and thus, argued adamantly against including as many previously rejected absentee ballots as he could.

But that was then, when he thought he was winning, and this is now, when he seems to be losing...

President-elect Barack Obama said today that there is "no pride of authorship" on his economic stimulus package. For good or bad, in regard to that particular initiative, this seems to me what a President should sound like. Let's hope he means it, and that this m.o. extends to all aspects of his Presidency. (appx 3 mins)...

As I've recently been consulted by Obama's team overseeing transition review of the U.S. Election Assistance Commission (EAC), and have offered what I believe to be some good ideas about serious reform for the so-far dreadfully-failed commission, I'll hope he means what he says in the above about accepting such ideas and putting them into practice. We shall see, but the words said above sound very good to my ears.

Imagine the round-the-clock phony "outrage" from the Public-air Propagandists (Fund, Limbaugh, Hannity, etc.) you'd be hearing about "felons voting in the MN Senate race!" had the felon voted for Franken. Such as it is, however, he voted for Coleman, so it doesn't actually "matter".

But now that we're here, can we finally do away with these stupid restrictions on felons voting? Especially if they're out of jail, as this one was. He was on supervised release, after being convicted and imprisoned in 2004, when he was 20, for having sexual contact with a 15-year-old girl.

On Election Day, he had left a voice message for his supervisory agent that he was going out to vote, only to come home later to find out from the agent that he had broken the law. He has since pleaded guilty to illegally voting.

"I was just excited that the presidential election was coming up and I would be able to vote," he said. "I had never voted in my life. ... I really wasn't aware that I couldn't vote."

Why should felons --- often more directly affected than most by government laws, good ones or bad ones --- be disallowed from having a voice in the government that makes those laws? Particularly after they've served their time in jail?

I realize that may not be a "politically correct" point of view in many quarters. But I don't care. If you're out of jail, of voting age, able to participate in society, and are bound to the laws of that society, you ought to be able to excercise your voice in that society by being able to cast a vote in a democratically-held election. Period.

I realize that felons, even after release, may have other rights taken from them, but voting doesn't seem as if it should be one of them. If you have an argument to the contrary, of course, I'd certainly be interested in hearing what it is

The state canvassing board in Minnesota has now certified Al Franken (D) as the winner over incumbent Sen. Norm Coleman (R) in the race for the U.S. Senate. Barring a successful legal challenge, which has now been filed by Coleman, Franken will have won the seat by an astoundingly close 225 votes, out of some 2.9 million cast.

But there's still a chance, albeit a slim one, for Coleman to reverse his fate. A very good provision in MN's law --- not found in most other states --- may delay Franken's seating, meaning he will not be sworn in with rest of Congress at the beginning of the new session slated to start tomorrow. Ultimately, however, the provisions should ensure that whoever is eventually sworn in to serve as the state's Senator will not be forced to serve under a cloud.

The voters of MN deserve that much, no matter how long it takes, and thankfully, like its hand-count laws, the state's provision requiring the completion of legal challenges before final certification is sent to Congress by the Sec. of State, is a model for the nation.

Would that all of the other states in the union had such a provision...

There can be little doubt that, of the issues springing from elections held since George W. Bush signed the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) of 2002, two are among the most significant. Those issues are failures of voting systems to meet the HAVA mandates for accuracy and accessibility and the confusion over the proper use of provisional ballots.

The states should have been able to look to the federal Election Assistance Commission (EAC) for guidance on both issues, but the EAC has failed to give the necessary Assistance, thus failing to fulfill duties assigned to the agency by federal law.

Now the EAC is proposing to extend its dereliction of duty for another two years. The result will be the publication of these important guidelines a full eight years after HAVA was enacted. The delay is inexcusable and intolerable, and the cost to American elections, on many fronts, is nearly incalculable...

As thousands of challenged ballots from both Sen. Norm Coleman (R) and challenger Al Franken (D) are being decided by the bi-partisan state canvassing board in the U.S. Senate race in MN, AP says it's currently a 2 vote race, out of 2.9 million ballots cast, in favor of Franken.

That said, as all of the challenged ballots are finally counted over the next several days (and weeks), the lead could go back and forth a bit each night. The Star-Tribune, which puts today's margin at 5 votes in favor of Coleman, currently projects that Franken will ultimately win by 89 votes...

These are some of the folks whose votes that democracy-hating Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN) is going to the state Supreme Court to keep from being counted in the U.S. Senate race in Minnesota...

The video, produced by challenger Al Franken's campaign, was described by the Coleman camp as "a new low." As Republicanists tend to project just about everything they do on others, we'd suggest that there may be "a new low" here, but in this case, it ain't coming from the Franken camp.

As we reported on Friday, the state canvassing board --- made up of Republicans (two are MN Supreme Court judges), Democrats, and Independents --- ruled unanimously in favor of counting the 1,600 or so absentee ballots which were improperly rejected by election officials and not counted originally in the state's razor-close U.S. Senate race.

Hopefully those ballots now will be counted, unless Coleman has his way in the Supreme Court where he hopes to get an order to stop the counting of legal ballots cast by folks like those seen in the video above. Nice.

CORRECTION: The original version of this article referred to 16,000 rather than 1,600 improperly rejected absentee ballots. The BRAD BLOG regrets the error.

As long promised, The BRAD BLOG has covered your electoral system 2008, fiercely and independently, like no other media outlet in the nation. Please support our work with a donation to help us keep going. If you like, we'll send you some great, award-winning election integrity documentary films in return! Details on that right here...

Her article touched on a number of technical issues involved in the failure of the Diebold GEMS central tabulator which, though we hadn't noted them in our own coverage, are nonetheless important, even if somewhat down in the weeds, and perhaps most of note to technical election integrity geeks only.

As quoted below in some detail from Zetter's report, she advances the story by noting:

The problem, which Diebold admits has been in its system for years, likely wouldn't have been noticed at all were it not for the unique, experimental, citizen-led "Humboldt Transparency Project." Even CA's required 1% random post-election "audit" wouldn't have uncovered the problem, since absentee ballots are not included in that audit.

The chances of the problem occurring, which resulted in ballots being deleted without notice by the Diebold GEMS tabulator, are rather high, even if chances of discovery of the error by election officials are very low.

Diebold's explanation for the failure may or may not be legitimate.

The GEMS internal "audit logs" (the GEMS system was used in 34 states around the nation last November) aren't actually audit logs at all, and may not actually note the complete set of events which occurred on the voting system, even if anyone is allowed to review those logs in the first place.